Craft Coffee is hiring. If you’re interested, check out our jobs page at http://craftcoffee.com/jobs
Hiring at a startup is a big deal. The people you bring on board will be the foundation of a company that is expected to do a lot with a little. You’re expected to grow a lot and to do it quickly—all based on the blood, sweat and tears of your core team. At Craft Coffee, the team we’re hiring now will be essential to our future success.
This post is specifically about hiring for non-technical positions. Tech hiring is a different beast.
Our hiring process started out without much structure and we quickly realized that this was an unfeasible approach. We had two main job openings — marketing and operations. For those two positions we received over 400 applicants. The trouble then becomes how much time it takes to actually consider each of these people.
Try reading 400 resumes some time. It’s painful.
First, a couple resume tips for applicants:
- No matter how much you’ve done, or how strong the desire to list everything you’ve ever accomplished, do not submit resumes longer than one page. When I’m reading 400 resumes, the last thing I want to see is a two, three or four page burden.
- On a similar note, when you start shrinking that font size to fit more on the page, just stop yourself. Filling more stuff on to the page with tiny font is just as bad as a multi-pager.
Now, a tip for future employers: In the current economic climate, expect to see very large volumes of applicants for good jobs. You need a process in place to try and make sure your time is spent wisely, and that you focus your limited resources on only the most promising candidates.
You’ll be amazed at the deterrent power of asking a few simple questions. Even the most basic ones, like: why do you want to work here? First, it will stop a huge number of applicants from even applying. Of course, if that’s too much of a hurdle for them, then they wouldn’t be a good fit for your company. So now they’ve done your hiring job for you.
Then, even the folks who apply and answer the questions will do things like copy and paste their cover letter into the answer section of any question you ask. Fail. Again, they’ve done your job for you.
After those two categories of applicants, you’ll be left with a tiny minority of people who you would have otherwise needed to take the time to consider.
What you’ll find is that most answers are completely generic. Candidates will not take the time to give you real answers. Again, fail.
Even better, in your application ask a very simple quiz question that pertains directly to the job. In our current operations job post, we ask a couple basic questions about shipping a box to Japan, which is something that we do every month. The resulting answers to these questions will provide you with an amazing amount of clarity in a number of ways.
It’s amazing how much time you’ll save yourself by asking just a few simple questions. Then you can focus on the couple of applicants who have the best chance of being a good fit.
